Elon Musk is used to hearing criticism for encouraging his employees to carry out impossible projects, with almost complete disregard for safety and security considerations. Tesla has already been investigated several times for cutting corners when it comes to the autonomous driving status of its cars, SpaceX has been investigated for the environmental consequences of its operations, and X is being investigated for what it does, or does not do, to censor or not censor content uploaded to it.
Now, SpaceX appears to be causing new concern and anger among scientists, due to a phenomenon observed during its launches called SpaceX auroras, a kind of red halos in the sky, the meaning of which we tried to understand using ChatGPT.
The company's Falcon 9 rockets, which have been launched into space at a frequency approaching daily in recent months, have been linked to creating "ionospheric holes." These are temporary tears in the ionosphere – the upper layer of the atmosphere, between 48 and 965 kilometers above the earth's surface, in which gas is ionized, or stripped of electrons – caused by the fuel released by the missiles, both during takeoff and during landing. The fusion of the holes is what emits red light that looks like a strange version of the Northern Lights, for about 10 to 20 minutes.
Astronomers at the McDonald Observatory in Texas spotted the phenomenon in February, and have since recorded 2 to 5 such occurrences each month. The red balls, which emerge long after the rocket has left Earth's atmosphere, raise questions about their potential impact on astronomical science.
Although not a threat to life on Earth, ionospheric changes can affect shortwave radio communication and interfere with signals from satellite positioning systems such as GPS. While scientists mostly try to estimate the effect of this glow on astronomical observations, Jeffrey Baumgardner, a physicist at Boston University, highlights the opportunity to learn more about the chemistry of the ionosphere by observing these events.
The increasing frequency of SpaceX launches – which recently launches a rocket into space every one and a half to two and a half days on average – is also making ionospheric holes and red glows more common. Scientists admit that we don't know enough about the possible impact of this phenomenon on our planet – but they call for it to be investigated soon.
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